Yazidistan, officially the
Radiant Sultanate of Yazidistan, is a
theodemocracy located in western Asia between Byzantium, the Arabian Caliphate and the Persian Empire. The heartland of the Yezidi religion, the nation has for much of its history remained closed to its neighbors owing to widespread ethnoreligious tension at this junction of major religions. With their unique faith system decried as heretical or even satanic by Christian and Muslim sects throughout history the Yazidi ethnoreligious group organized early on to repel incursions from hostile neighbors, creating a tightly knit and well defended nation state in the sixteenth century that has persisted to the present. Historically ruled by a an absolute monarch who also serves as head of the faith, the nation chose to modernize its institutions in the nineteenth century, eventually establishing a representative republic organized along the theodemocratic principles pioneered but never implemented by President Joseph Smith.
As such, there are no religious barriers to voting or running for political office, with a balance achieved between a unicameral legislature that forges policy, an executive branch under a president to implement it, and a supreme court to rule on constitutional and religious questions. One innovation in the theodemocratic system is that the Sultan, as head of the faith, is able to override the legislature on certain matters through divine revelation. Despite this extraordinary veto, the Sultan has transitioned into a purely religious rather than political office over time, with the power rarely used and the monarch more often serving a ceremonial function as the nation's head of state.
With God in the Yazidi cosmology taking a remote position from creation, the flag of Yazidistan instead directly references the angel Melek Taus who was entrusted to manage it, with a seven-pointed gold star to represent divine emanation and the "Seven Mysteries" central to the faith, red to symbolize martyr's blood, and the combination of green, sky blue and indigo to suggest a peacock, an animal traditionally associated with Melek Taus and the nation more generally.
